Technical Field
This disclosure relates generally to multimedia delivery systems, and more particularly to multimedia delivery systems delivering advertising to subscriber devices.
Background Art
Multimedia delivery systems, such as those used by cable operators, content originators, over-the-top content providers, and so forth, deliver multimedia video content, software updates, webpages, and other information to subscriber devices. Frequently, advertising is inserted into the multimedia content. Subscribers watch these advertisements during commercial breaks, which are known as “avails,” that occur during the multimedia playback. The insertion of these advertisements provides a revenue source for not only the system provider but for content providers as well. Such advertising helps to offset the cost of creating and delivering programming to subscribers. The traditional way these service providers and system providers earn such revenue is via the insertion of advertisements into avails in broadcast programming.
In traditional advertising insertion, everyone saw the same advertisement. When a show was delivered via broadcast, every subscriber receiving the broadcast saw the exact same advertisement. While this made content delivery easy due to the fact that a single advertisement could be inserted into content delivered to every single subscriber, it was less than satisfactory for the advertiser. Advertisers have long preferred to deliver targeted advertising to people with common interests or demographics. Targeted advertising is the selection of video advertisements for insertion into broadcast programming in such a manner as to match the advertisement to an individual viewer's interest profile.
In some modern content delivery system technologies, attempting to deliver targeted advertising is problematic. For example, in certain broadcast systems where multiple users view common programming, attempting to deliver any form of targeted advertising can cause unwanted bandwidth spikes. Transitioning from delivering a single television program to one hundred users, for example, to delivering individual advertisements to each user causes tremendous bandwidth spikes during advertising avails. It would be advantageous to have improved systems and methods for advertising insertion and delivery.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present disclosure.